Farewell To The East End

an orphan. Both parents were known and living.
    A decade later, I delivered the baby of a young girl in Poplar. Throughout the delivery her mother shouted repeatedly that she would ‘get rid of the baby and put it in a home or institution’. At one stage she ordered me – the midwife – to ‘clear off’. She could deliver the baby herself and then get rid of it. I don’t know what she had in mind, but obviously she knew of some lawful way of disposing of an unwanted baby. 8
    The standard of care in these private ‘homes’ for babies would depend entirely on the person in charge. One of my friends was an illegitimate child seventy-five years ago. She was sent from one private boarding or foster parent to another, and eventually went to live with a single lady who loved and cared for her and became a lifelong guardian and friend. By way of contrast a woman in Clapham was prosecuted in the 1920s for having eight babies (each of which she was paid to care for) in five cots in the basement of her house. The babies ranged from newborn to three years old. The toddlers could not walk. They had never been out of their cots. They could not talk; they had not heard enough language.
    Traffic in children has been going on for as long as mankind has been sinning and suffering. Josephine Butler (1828-1907) writes in her journals, pamphlets and diaries of the second half of the nineteenth century about seeing thousands (yes, thousands ) of little girls, some as young as four or five, in the illegal brothels of London, Paris, Brussels and Geneva. It broke her heart to see them. The children had a life expectany of two years, yet the brothel owners, frequently women, seemed to have an unlimited supply of little girls for their rich clients. ‘Clean’ children, who were free from venereal disease, commanded a high price. All this is well documented, but strangely Mrs Butler never mentions little boys, though this branch of the trade must have been going on. 9
    Where did all these children come from? It could certainly not have been from the Salvation Army or the workhouses or state orphanages, nor from the established management orphanages such as Coram, Barnardo or Spurgeon. So from where, then?
    A basic law of economics is that supply will meet demand. If brothel keepers wanted ‘clean’ children, unscrupulous women who boarded unwanted babies would supply them, for a price. No questions asked. Many children were not named or registered, and for those who were, a false birth certificate was provided. The parents or relatives probably never knew what had happened to their children. They just vanished as though they had never been born.
    Baby selling – the last resort of a starving mother – was rife throughout the population explosion of the nineteeth century. This led to the terrible evil whereby traders, usually women, secured the custody of unwanted little ones, took out an insurance policy on their lives and then by neglect, cold and starvation ensured the death of the child and claimed the insurance. There are many recorded instances of this practice. Dr Barnardo is on record as having thwarted the murderous designs of a ruthless old harridan who had acquired three babies, insured them all, pawned their clothes, covered them in rags and left them without heat or food.
    This must make terrible reading for anyone who is seriously studying family history. But life is made of happiness and tragedy in equal proportions, and we will never change that.

SOOT

    Within the midwifery practice it was noticed that several babies had developed various infections: sticky eyes, pustules, aural discharge, diarrhoea, an infected umbilical stump. Not all babies were affected, but of those that were, one became quite ill. Swabs were taken for analysis, and the report came back from the pathology lab. All the infections were caused by the same strain of staphylococcus aureus. Where was it coming from?
    All Sisters and nurses had to be screened, and the analysis proved that Cynthia was carrying a staphylococcus aureus infection, which she was passing on to the babies. Gentle Cynthia was horrified that she was the cause, especially as she did not look or feel ill in any way. But the report from the lab was incontrovertible. She was taken off work straight away and treated with antibiotics, and the infection cleared.
    All the babies were also treated with penicillin, and they recovered. In previous decades, before the advent of